Letter to my daughter

Today is my daughter's birthday.
Today is her first birthday since becoming a mother.
Today she understands, for the first time,  a mother's love for her child.

Below is a letter that I wrote to her on her 21st birthday.

I feel the same today as I did on the day I originally wrote it. 

Dearest Tammy Sue,

Once upon a time, exactly 21 years ago today, at 10:30am on a Sunday morning, a darling little dark-eyed girl was born. It was a day of great excitement at the hospital because never had so many little cherubs arrived in their midst at about the same time.  


The reason being, of course, that this was the best day of the entire year to be born.  All the babies wanted to arrive on this special day, since it meant that they would be an extra special blessing to their parents.  

And . .  what a blessing that brown-eyed little baby has been to her mom and dad.  She has filled their hearts and minds with such wonderful memories.  Memories are of a little girl:

• sitting on the top step of the combine, swinging her legs back and forth with skinned-up knees, face and finger smudged with combine grease  - in a dress ! - saying "Daddy, when I get big can I be the boss?"
• asking, "Grandma, isn't your lap lonely?" - because you wanted her to stop and hold you.
• announcing, "when I get big, i'm going to have grandma take care of my kids when I go to work".
• begging to stay home from grade school because it was so boring and they wasted a lot of time there. 
• exclaiming, after being sick and having just completed 2 days of school work in just 2 hours, "See, there is no reason to keep us there all day"
• trying to sneak into her mom and dad's bed in the middle of the night and saying, "here comes a little girl who loves you."
• having a "headache in my leg" when her legs hurt.
• singing continuously
• getting all excited on Election Day, going to the polls with her mom or dad - or both.  Collecting copies of all the ballots, quizzing her parents as to how they had voted, (sometimes inadvertently making them realize that they had voted the opposite on some issues), marking her ballos carefull, and then sitting in front of the television late into the night watching the returns.  And getting genuinely excited when "her" candidate won.
• Voting for "Ronnie" at school, because "I sure wasn't going to vote for Jimmy".
• snuggling under the warm electric blanket and saying, "Ahhh.  It's so nice to be safe from sound".

Then one day she grew up into a very pretty lady and instead of sitting on top of combines and climbing trees, she was on top of the Singing Christmas Tree and at the top of her class. 

And as far as her parents are concerned, regardless of how far away she goes or what she does with her life, she WILL always be the top.  Even when she doesn't feel on top of anything and even when she may feel she has failed, there isn't a daughter anywhere that can top her.

Because, once upon a time, exactly 21 years ago today, God blessed them with a little dark-eyed girl  -  on the very best day of the entire year. 
                                                                                         Mom & Dad

You go girl !!
We love you


PS:   the hospital set a record for the number of births in one day - on the day of Tammy's birth.